“The last was in Vienna, six months or so later. I had taken a summer trip to Italy and through the Swiss Alps, but no amorous interlude presented itself and I was really in the mood for some love, or rather, the physical love which passes as infatuation and esthetic desire for the beautiful feminine body. I went to the Hotel Imperial where I always stay in Vienna, and was taken by a porter to my room. Another porter was in the lobby with a young woman and I found we were headed for the same floor. The woman had fair good looks, was very appetizing, about thirty or thirty-one, I'd judge, and had good manners.
She was elegantly dressed, wearing some fine jewelry. She was not too slim but strikingly voluptuous. She spoke to her porter in French with a slight accent, and I took from it she was a Czech or a Yugoslav, or even a Pole. I saw her taken to her room down one corridor while we went down another.
“Half an hour later, I phoned the porter and said in a confidential tone that I had come up with a young woman who was very pretty and I'd like her room number. He showed a certain hearty complicity so I phoned the woman and told her I'd come up in the elevator with her but that I felt shy and hoped that she wouldn't mind my saying I found her to be ravishing and also, if she wouldn't be angry, I suggested her coming round for a little talk as soon as she was settled. I gave her my room number and then said perhaps she'd prefer me to come to her.
“She laughed, hesitatingly, not a little surprised. We talked for a few more minutes, I keeping my voice light and ingratiating, to suggest a whimsical caprice on my part, something one did only once in a lifetime. She said in a voice broken by tiny gurgles of laughter, 'All right, then-I'll come to your room in about twenty minutes, but please open the door as soon as I knock-or, I know- I'll phone just before I start so you can leave the door ajar.'
“The ring came in less than twenty minutes. I half opened my door. A few moments later she slipped into the room wearing a silk dressing gown and mules. She thought, I assumed, if people saw her thus in a large hotel corridor they'd avert their gaze, but I confess I felt touched by her courage in setting just the right note to my suggestion. I felt there'd be no beating about the bush. I told her how sweet it was of her to come and how lovely she was, and began by kissing her lovely hands. Then I took her in my arms. I could see she had on next to nothing under her dressing gown. When I opened it, she stood revealed in no more than a shift, without either panties or bra, and her body smelled of bath salts and of scent. “I said to myself that here was an intelligent woman, with a proper feeling for a situation. She knew that if she had come along prepared to play the part of a woman of the world paying a casual visit with hat, suit and the lot, she would have been bogged down in an adventure in the same old rut. She saw that once she accepted the adventure in the spirit of my offer-and my cynicism left her no doubt about that-she must take a line of utter shamelessness and be prepared for the 'assault direct.' A minute later, stretched out on the divan, we were exchanging the most outrageous caresses. I chose now to omit all the usual transition and prelims; first I had to remove her gown. Cupping her breasts and kissing them through the shift, I carried her to the divan in my arms, trussed the shift, removed my own dressing robe, and mounted her naked, kissing her mouth and breasts and neck while my hands kept caressing her belly and thighs.
“She seemed prepared to second me quite admirably in this. She understood that my methods were not the results of a natural crudity, but dictated by a sense of style. I found out, during a pause, that she was Austrian living in Paris as the mistress of a rich Austrian banker. As she was about to return to her room, she said, giving me a hug, 'Perhaps we shall meet in Paris and if I'm not alone you can bow to me, but you won't kiss me on the lips, will you, or pinch my bottom as you're doing now?'
“And there, my love-ends my magic carpet's flight, being back in New York with you, the final woman of my most cherished dreams.”